Reflection

After reading a few other PLE reflection posts, I feel less alone. There are certainly benefits to owning and operating a Personal Learning Environment. But there are definitely negatives to the experience too.
First, the benefits.
If you’re part of a community that is technologically based, having a PLE is a great option. It provides you with the opportunity to get connected with others, share original ideas, or thoughts that have been sparked by information from the community.
It’s an easy means of communication. I can quickly comment on another person’s PLE (assuming it’s blog based) to leave a few thoughts when they occur to me. Because these PLE’s are available at all times, there’s less chance to forget the comments you were going to make, opposed to having to wait to see the person face to face.
It allows for the creation of a global community. The introduction and facilitation of the internet does provide for the creation of an international community to be created and people to become part of this virtual community.
These are all great aspects. However, there are also downfalls.
You have to enjoy blogging. Not everyone likes to share the thoughts they have, and by operating a PLE, you have to continually update, share, and add new information. If you don’t enjoy this sort of sharing and upkeep, the PLE becomes more of a burden than anything else. It’s a weekly task that becomes mundane and arduous. Because there were requirements, we took the worksheets, answered the questions, and moved on.
These thoughts that we shared on the PLE’s may or may not have been genuine thoughts towards our model, but it was a piece to be done. There was a sense of ‘artificialness’ to a lot of the posts, just trying to meet the requirements. Also because of the requirements, we had to do weekly posts. And to be honest, this model did not evolve each and every week.
Also, there’s an issue of sharing information. I’ve never really thought about the idea of intellectual property, because frankly, before now I’ve never really cared about the materials that I produced. But, by being in this class, this is the first time that I feel like I’ve created something that I did get invested in. And even if my model isn’t as applicable as I think it is, I’m proud of it, and the ideas behind it. It is something that I would go back and revisit and improve if I did decide to go into education and professional development. I am heavily invested in Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory. I think this is the direction that classrooms need to move in to create varied and inclusive education.
So by posting this idea, and this model, who’s to say that someone won’t stumble across it and take the root of these ideas, and this process and run with it before I get a chance to? And for once, in my education career, it bothers me that this has been posted on the internet. I’ve never been one to share my ideas, but now I’ve been put in a position that for a grade, I have to do so. It’s kind of an uncomfortable position to be in.
I do understand the benefits and merits of creating a PLE, and becoming part of a community. But I feel that these should be optional endeavors, not something that you HAVE to do. As a learning experience, it’s been interesting, and I know it’s provided a lot of new information for several of the students in the class. However, I am familiar with the general concept of blogging and networking. I would prefer to keep my online activities as social, keeping my academic ideas to myself until they’re published or put into practice.